Peptides for skin and hair, ranked by evidence
This is the one category where the human evidence is mostly topical, mostly cosmetic-grade, and mostly real as far as it goes. It is also where the gap between what a cream was tested to do and what an injection is claimed to do is widest.
- Compounds people use for this
- 11
- Approved for any indication
- 0
- Preliminary evidence or none
- 6
- Best-evidenced
- Argireline (Acetyl Hexapeptide-8)
A rank is a statement about evidence, not advice. Position here is calculated from the published evidence rating, regulatory standing and documented risks on each monograph. It says nothing about whether a compound is appropriate for you, and several of the best-evidenced entries are prescription medicines that carry serious warnings. Nothing on this page is a recommendation, and no page on this site states a dose.
Evidence for a compound applied to the skin does not transfer to the same compound injected. Several entries here are rated on topical trials and say so on their own page.
Ranked by the same evidence score used across the site, restricted to the compounds people actually take for this. A compound near the bottom is not necessarily useless — it is untested, which is a different and more common situation. Every row links to a monograph that says exactly what was studied and in whom.
| # | Compound | Status | Evidenceout of 100 | Riskout of 100 | Gaprisk − evidence | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Argireline (Acetyl Hexapeptide-8) Skin & Cosmetic · Acetyl hexapeptide-3 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 51 | 19 | -32 | Cosmetic Ingredient. 2 benefit claims on strong human evidence. |
| 2 | Matrixyl (Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4) Skin & Cosmetic · Pal-KTTKS | Cosmetic Ingredient | 49 | 19 | -30 | Cosmetic Ingredient. 1 benefit claim on strong human evidence. |
| 2 | Palmitoyl Tripeptide-1 Skin & Cosmetic · Pal-GHK | Cosmetic Ingredient | 49 | 22 | -27 | Cosmetic Ingredient. 1 benefit claim on strong human evidence. |
| 4 | GHK-Cu Skin & Cosmetic · Copper tripeptide-1 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 47 | 66 | +19 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 3 serious or common risks. |
| 4 | GPIGS (Pentapeptide-20) Skin & Cosmetic · Pentapeptide-20 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 47 | 44 | -3 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 1 serious or common risk. |
| 6 | Acetyl Tetrapeptide-3 Skin & Cosmetic · Ac-KGHK-NH2 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 32 | 47 | +15 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 1 serious or common risk. |
| 6 | Biotinoyl Tripeptide-1 (Biotinyl-GHK) Skin & Cosmetic · Biotinyl-GHK | Cosmetic Ingredient | 32 | 48 | +16 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. |
| 6 | SNAP-8 (Acetyl Octapeptide-3) Skin & Cosmetic · Acetyl glutamyl heptapeptide-1 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 32 | 26 | -6 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. |
| 9 | AHK-Cu Skin & Cosmetic · Copper tripeptide-3 | Cosmetic Ingredient | 17 | 78 | +61 | Cosmetic Ingredient. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 4 serious or common risks. |
| 10 | KPV Immune & Anti-inflammatory · Lysine-Proline-Valine | Research Use Only | 15 | 68 | +53 | Research Use Only. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 2 serious or common risks. |
| 10 | PTD-DBM Healing & Tissue Repair · Protein transduction domain-Dishevelled binding motif | Research Use Only | 15 | 95 | +80 | Research Use Only. No benefit claim on strong human evidence. 3 serious or common risks. |
How this ranking is built
| Evidence rating | 15 points each, up to 75 The published 1-5 rating, multiplied by fifteen. This is most of the score, because it is the thing the whole site is built to assess. |
|---|---|
| Regulatory standing | FDA Approved 12 · Limited Approval 7 · In Clinical Trials 4 · Cosmetic Ingredient 2 Approval by a major regulator means an agency has reviewed the trial data and agreed. Approval elsewhere, or an active registered trial, counts for less. A research-use-only label counts for nothing. |
| Well-supported benefit claims | 2 points each, up to 10 Two points for each benefit on the monograph carried by strong human evidence, up to five of them. A long list of weakly-supported claims adds nothing here. |
| Hard clinical endpoints | up to 3 Three points where a well-supported claim rests on something that happened to a patient — a death, a fracture, a heart attack, a transplant, a remission — rather than on a number that moved in a blood test. This is the site's published tie-breaker between two drugs that both have strong trials. |
Membership is computed from each monograph's category, tags and benefit claims rather than chosen by hand, so a compound added to the library appears here on its own. The score is the site-wide evidence score, not a score for this goal specifically — a compound approved for something else does not get credit here for that approval beyond its regulatory standing. Read the evidence scale for what the tiers mean.
The other things people ask about
See also the whole library ranked by evidence and by documented risk.